


Love Like This

by twobasco



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, Feelings Realization, First Meetings, M/M, POV Lee Minho | Lee Know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29623473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobasco/pseuds/twobasco
Summary: In truth, who just randomly gives someone a small, quite insignificant thing to someone else because it reminded them of the other? Minho buries his face in his pillow.Hell, he likes Jisung inthatway, huh?
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38
Collections: MINSUNG FICATHON: Round One; 2020





	Love Like This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sukoshidake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sukoshidake/gifts).



> This was written for the very very fun [MINSUNG FICATHON](http://twitter.com/minsungficathon), for PROMPT **P030!**
> 
> Yes, I tagged this as both canon compliant and canon divergent - because while it's very much based on real life incidents, this is still very much a work of fiction.
> 
> I genuinely apologize if I wasn't able to execute this very well. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it! I'll see you all around~

Minho remembers the first time he’d met Jisung - hard not to, when he literally crashed into the younger boy on his first day of being a JYP trainee.  
The rain was pouring especially hard that day, and despite the umbrella he’d held over his head, Minho was still getting pelted by the water, running along the sidewalk to walk up to the building. It was kind of hard to see in front of himself, and in his haste to shield himself from the rain, he runs smack dab into another person.  
  
“Shit!” he swears softly. Luckily enough, the stranger has managed to hold their own ground instead of toppling backwards into the slippery pavement. Minho hurriedly bows his head, gesturing for the other to walk inside the building first.  
  
The mask over the stranger’s face makes it hard to make out their expression, but their eyes glint with something unidentifiable. Minho gulps nervously. Only his first day, and he’s already made a bad impression on someone. He prays he doesn’t have to work often with whoever this is. The stranger walks on ahead, only inclining his own head as well to acknowledge Minho’s apology, and dries off quickly by the front door before rushing for an elevator. Minho breathes out a sigh, wiping his own feet on the mat.  
  
Later on, Chan, one of the older trainees who has years of training experience stocked up, leads him around a few practice rooms, introducing him to a few people here and there as he explains the usual schedules and trainers Minho will have to get acquainted with. He opens the door to a recording room, much to Minho’s interest. When he’d learned that Chan focused on producing music, he was surprised to learn JYP had self-producing trainees. Minho himself felt like only his dancing was of note to land a place here.  
  
“Oh, Jisung’s here,” Chan says, entering the cool, comfortably silent recording room. Minho can see a guy slouched over a desk, big, bright blue headphones covering his ears. Minho doesn’t understand what’s going on on the guy’s screen, but he looks deep in thought.  
  
“Yeah, this is Han Jisung,” Chan laughs, when he sees the other guy barely paying them any attention. He taps the headphones on Han Jisung’s head.  
  
“Ya, Han Jisung, this is Lee Minho-ssi,” Chan says, gesturing politely.  
  
Han Jisung finally turns around in his chair to scowl at Chan, before turning his attention to Minho. His cheeks are full and his dyed hair flops around against his eyes, so young but Minho immediately recognizes the tireless passion in his stare.  
  
Minho gives a quick bow. “Nice to meet you.”  
  
Jisung raises his eyebrows, and his expression is nearly a glare that Minho is taken aback. Nevertheless, he holds his polite smile, unsure of what to say.  
“You’re the guy who bumped into me at the entrance earlier,” Jisung says, instead of greeting in return. Minho is suddenly embarrassed, letting out a nervous little laugh.  
  
“Oh, right. I’m sorry about that, Jisung-ssi,” he replies, bowing deeper. Instead, he hears a laugh from the other boy.  
  
“No need to be so formal, it’s fine.”  
  
Minho looks up to meet Jisung’s eyes, staring at him with a small smile on his face that doesn’t seem obviously fake, so he allows himself to relax.  
  
“We started on the wrong foot there,” Jisung continues, bowing as well. “But no matter. It’s good to meet you too, Lee Minho-ssi.”  
  
Minho feels a relaxed, lazy smirk spreading on his face. “I thought there was no need to be so formal.” Jisung blinks.  
  
“Oh. Right.”  
  


Years later, Minho still doesn’t understand how well he and Jisung have clicked since then. It’s the (insert season), and on a rare break from promotions, Minho had shut the door on the work part of his passion and packed his bags to head home to his mother’s good food and the sorely missed company of his cats. Minho had been an only child growing up, so he had always been better with animals than other people. He thinks of this as he walks across the road on the way back to his house - the wind whipping leaves in the air.  
  
His phone chimes, and he brings it out to see a text from no other than Jisung himself.

🐿  
Hyung! Don’t forget to send pictures of the kids~

He snorts. Jisung had taken to calling Minho’s three cats kids, after Minho had gotten Dori, with Jisung immediately cooing over the multitude of pictures he’d sent to the group chat.

Leeknowring 😹  
You talk like we’re their parents~ They’re just mine! Not yours!

He smiles for a moment at his phone screen, before sticking it back in his pocket to continue walking home. Even when they’re technically on a break, and most of the time, no one really messages the group chat when they’re all resting at home and spending time with family, but Jisung has always found a way to keep in touch with Minho, updating him as well with his new songs, and compositions, as most of the time, Jisung stayed in Seoul.  
  
Minho is lost in thought when he feels he’s stepped on a strange, protruding thing on the ground. He walks back to reveal a small, brown acorn on the asphalt, a tiny bit dusty with bits of snow sticking on it. His mouth curls into a small, evil grin, before picking it up hurriedly and dusting it off with the sleeve of his jacket.  
  
When Minho returns to Seoul a few days later, in the middle of the day when no one is at the dorm yet, he creeps into Jisung and Jeongin’s shared room, and rests the acorn stuffed into his pocket to the bed he knows to be Jisung’s. With a small laugh, he walks back to his own room.

The room where Minho and Jeongin are doing their joint VLive is chilly, but neither of them really want to make a move to turn down the AC. It’s too much fun, like this, sitting beside each other in front of a camera that is broadcasting their light, bantering conversation for millions of fans to see. Behind it, a manager is idly scrolling through her phone, only here out of courtesy than necessity. Stray Kids have always been one of the easier to manage groups.  
  
“So, Hannie hyung,” Jeongin’s saying, when Minho’s phone starts ringing - flashing a bright “🐿” as the contact name, rather than a regular name. Jeongin spies it, and he smiles.  
  
“Ah, Jisungie hyung is calling,” he says out loud for the benefit of the viewers.  
  
Minho suppresses a smile. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, “Ah, just when we were talking about Han Jisung,” he says, picking up the phone.  
  
The crackle of Jisung’s voice over the line is familiar, comfortable. “Hyung!” he says energetically, “You’re doing a VLive right?”  
  
“Yes, we’re in the middle of a VLive right now~” he replies. He hears his own voice echo back, confirming his suspicions. “From the noise I’m hearing, I can tell you’re watching our VLive right now?” He keeps his mouth from spreading into a wider grin, glancing at Jeongin and at the camera.  
  
“Yep!” chirps Jisung on the other end.  
  
“Alright, I’ll hang up now,” he says jokingly, knowing Jisung has something important to say, or he wouldn’t have called. “Yeah, here, greet once,” he allows, putting him on speaker mode.  
  
“I have something to say!” Jisung declares, once he realizes he’s been put on speaker mode. Minho can feel a laugh bubbling in his throat from hearing Jisung’s over-excited voice. Minho has no idea what the other wants to say, but he’s known him long enough to let him do as he pleases. Beside him, Jeongin lets out a soft chuckle at Jisung’s antics.  
  
“Ah… hello!” Jisung chirps, “This is Stay Kids’ Han Jisungie… Lee Know hyung left an acorn on my bed a few weeks back…”  
  
Minho chokes. He certainly wasn’t expecting that. He bows his head, feeling Jeongin’s questioning stare at him. “Huh?” the maknae asks.  
  
Minho starts to laugh. He knows exactly what Jisung’s talking about, and he can’t believe the younger had chosen to confront him about it here, at this time. He looks between the camera and the phone in his hand, and notes the manager has torn her eyes away from her own phone to look at him, having piqued her interest.  
  
“Alright, bye-bye~” he sing-songs, with no intent to cut off Jisung’s call.  
  
He begins to laugh harder as Jisung barrels on, “He really did… hyung, you know what I’m talking about, right?”  
  
Despite being wrapped up in one of his comfiest sweaters, Minho begins to feel the chill of the room. He curls his toes, ducking his head again to keep the embarrassed smile he’s painfully wearing from being shown to the camera. He can’t believe Jisung has decided to talk about this in front of all of their fans, and Jeongin.  
  
Well, it’s not like he hates it, however.  
  
“I know,” he laughs resignedly, as Jeongin’s smile turns from politely confused to a wide, shit-eating grin. Both of them glance over at their manager, who’s raising a single eyebrow directly at Minho. He begins to laugh harder.  
  
“Fine, I’ll explain in the live,” he offers.  
  
He hears Jisung’s sigh. “No, ah, Lee Know hyung isn’t in his right mind, everyone,” he warns jokingly. Jeongin bursts into laughter, Minho folding over to laugh as well.  
  
“Goodbye, Han Jisung~” Minho says warningly, unable to keep a smile from his face and he focuses on the phone in his head instead of remembering the millions of fans watching him from the other side of the screen right now. Jisung is laughing lightly, and Minho can imagine the self-satisfied smirk he’s grown so fond of.  
  
He doesn’t look at Jeongin as he recounts the story, and replays it in his mind. Jeongin is smiling knowingly, and it makes Minho confused if there’s something he’s missing here.  
  
“He’s a squirrel right? Hannie~” he makes eye contact with the youngest, and the look Jeongin is giving him makes him shiver slightly, so he looks away, continuing, “I thought of him and took it home with me to give it to him!” Between Jeongin’s ahhhhhhs Minho feels the flush of embarrassment creeping up his face, but he barrels on.  
  
“That’s it! There’s nothing more behind it, everyone~” he says, now addressing the viewers. Jeongin is still chuckling, and their manager has shifted her attention back to her phone, already used to Stray Kids’ antics.

A few months back, in preparation for their IN album, Stray Kids come to a local basketball gym to take some fun shots for one of their new songs. Outside, the weather had been really chilly and windy, with Minho taking in the warmth of the white, long sleeved button-up he’d been given.  
  
The whole concept of the shoot was simple enough, film a few shots of the members running around playing basketball, all smiles and laughter and playing together.  
  
“Ok! We’ll do Lee Know’s solo shot now,” calls the director, gesturing for Minho to place himself in the center of all the boys. He obliges, idly dribbling the basketball in his hand. The idea was simple enough - celebrate scoring a basket. The cameras roll, and he easily receives the ball passed to him by Seungmin, and he shoots, the ball sliding easily into the basket and the gym erupts with the practiced cheers of all the members. Despite the filmed nature of it, the just them moving as they are told, Minho still feels the genuine joy and pride they all take, to be able to do this. Minho gives a small grin and steps back a little, when a person comes closer and closer to his field of vision, giving Minho a near heart-attack.  
  
It’s only when he feels the hand in his hair, another on his shoulder, when Minho realizes it’s Jisung who’d run towards him. The younger boy’s shout of excitement is normal, and Minho notices he’d curled his hand around Jisung’s waist. Everyone starts laughing again, even the staff that are assisting in the filming.  
  
At the time, he’d thought little of it. Jisung was naturally a touchy person, who expressed his feelings through physical touch. He was loud when it counted and bright most of the time, always a mood maker through his words, jokes, and actions. He was also close enough with Minho that the older didn’t mind the surprising action, it made good material for their video anyway. So when Minho watches it now - he studies his face, the way his eyes grow wide before a small, genuine smile to the boy ruffling his hair - does he understand himself now.  
  
In truth, who just randomly gives someone a small, quite insignificant thing to someone else because it reminded them of the other? Minho buries his face in his pillow.  
  
He revels in Jisung’s little touches, and he feels the ghost of his hand on his thigh from only a few hours before on the car ride on the way back to the dorm from a scheduled TV appearance. The way Jisung’s hair smelled as he leaned against Minho, snoring softly without a care in the world. How he’d felt meeting the strange, fantastically talented young boy, that sparkle and enthusiasm never ceasing. The warmth of his hand wrapped around his when he’d nervously tried rapping in front of someone who could crush his dreams - and how far he’d come since then with the younger boy by his side.  
  
Hell, he likes Jisung in that way, huh?

The realization that he liked Jisung in that way caused Minho to, well, not exactly avoid the other boy, but to pull out more reasons to cut down on the frequent free time they spent together. Usually, Jisung would immediately slide into the seat next to Minho’s during car rides, but Minho positioned himself so that either side would be taken. He watches Jisung peek into the car briefly, face briefly twisting into a frown when he sees Changbin and Jeongin on either side of Minho, and walks to the other car. Minho breathes out a tiny sigh of relief, but then immediately feels bad. Beside him, Jeongin suddenly gasps.  
  
“What is it?” Minho asks him distractedly, bringing out his phone to have his hands fiddle the restless energy away.  
  
“It’s just, hyung, you…” Jeongin stares at him once again like he did when he’d relayed the story of the acorn incident, and Minho feels heat creeping up his neck again. However, he keeps his face straight and bored.  
  
“I? What?” he says.  
  
Jeongin throws a look at Jisung’s retreating back, then shrugs, his face settling into a passive motion.  
  
“Good luck,” he says, so sincerely, and Minho is absolutely surprised.  
  
And that betrays on his face, probably, because Jeongin lets out a short hyena laugh before smacking him on the shoulder. “It’s about damn time you figured it out, hyung, honestly. I mean, you two have been attached for practically the entire time I’ve known you.”  
  
Minho is thanking the heavens Changbin is already snoring peacefully away in the other seat next to him. He immediately digs his elbow into Jeongin’s side.  
  
“Alright, alright, thank you, annoying child,” he says, then pauses. “Was it really that obvious?”  
  
Jeongin rolls his eyes. “Hyung.”  
  
Minho groans, and lowers his head. “Is it really gay to give your best homie an acorn?”  
  
When Minho looks back up, Jeongin’s face is solemn, and he nods frantically. Minho groans once again.

Mission squash his feelings for Jisung before they get worse by cutting down the time with the aforementioned object of affections is not really going well. Mainly, Minho just feels very guilty when he sees Jisung’s disappointed face. Minho himself knows he deserves it, really, when his birthday rolls around and Jisung just participates in the quick cake blowing activity the members have prepared, singing one round of happy birthday in the quiet of the early morning before they’re whisked away to fulfill various schedules. Minho doesn’t have to turn him down for anything, because Jisung doesn’t approach him anyway. Despite this being his original goal, Minho can’t help but feel a little down on his birthday.  
  
Later at night, when they’ve arrived back and exhausted from the day, Minho briefly considers doing a birthday VLive for their fans - but pushes the thought back for a different day, when he’s less tired. The other members have all greeted him personally already and handed their individual gifts, except Jisung. Minho has accepted he probably isn’t receiving a gift this year, and quickly does his night routine before settling in his bed. Owning a bottom bunk, he draws back the curtains he’d fixed across it to give him some semblance of privacy, before stretching out in his bed and tapping away idly on his phone.  
  
He becomes absorbed by a few cat videos, a few hours later, when the curtain is suddenly being drawn back by someone outside. Minho’s face begins to form a tiny glare, to warn whoever it was to go away, it was already nearing 12 - when he realizes who’s on the other side of the curtain, squatting in front of his bed.  
  
“Oh, hi Jisung,” Minho says, surprised, swallowing nervously. “Did you need something?”  
  
He doesn’t miss the tiny frown on Jisung’s face, before the younger suddenly shoves a package in his chest. Surprised, Minho takes it.  
  
“Happy birthday,” the younger sighs. Minho realizes he’s holding a box of his favorite snacks.  
  
Minho blinks. Shame spreads between his shoulders, and he stares at the younger boy sitting in front of him, mumbling something about going back to his own bed to sleep, but Minho’s hand immediately shoots out to hold his wrist in place.  
  
“Hyung…? Do you need anything?” Jisung asks, eyebrows raising.  
  
“I…” Minho frowns. The realization he liked Jisung was a fresh one, sure, but the past few days of attempting to avoid the other felt very, very wrong.  
  
Because Minho had always been fine on his own - that much was true. He’d walked his path with only the support of his parents, knowing he at least had something to come home to, but it had always just been him against the world. When he first started at JYP, he was glad to be here, honing his skills and idly wondering if he’d really get to debut - but Jisung in his life, Jisung as his teammate, made him realize the path he’d walked was too lonely. Jisung had come crashing in his life so quickly yet so naturally, and Minho began to acknowledge he would be sticking around for a long time. There was a different kind of friendship they shared from the rest of the group, he knew that, and Minho really was a better person with Jisung around.  
  
“Stay,” he mumbles, raising his head to meet Jisung’s eyes. “It’s kind of cold.”  
  
Minho watches Jisung’s face bloom a tiny smile, and he nods. “Alright.”  
  
Jisung slips into the space beside Minho like he’d done countless times before, and he fits so naturally in that space that Minho thinks whatever he feels for Jisung, it’s going to turn out well. He knew the risks, naturally, with the business they were in and the stakes of this situation. But for now, this is as close as he could get.  
  
And he would never let that go.  
  
“Hey,” he whispers softly, storing away the box of snacks under the bed, before drawing the curtain back closed and settling once more into his bed. “I’m sorry for the past few days, okay? I was just…” he trails off, not knowing what to add.  
  
“It’s alright,” Jisung laughs softly. “Whatever it is, hyung, I know it’ll turn out alright! You don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you now, but you will soon, right?”  
  
“Well…” Minho drawls, slightly surprised but relieved Jisung forgave him so easily, and immensely thankful for the younger boy’s patience with him, “It’s not really a bother. But. Yeah, I’ll tell you soon.”  
  
“Ookiee…” Jisung says, a soft yawn bursting from his lips. He leans back against Minho’s chest, and Minho drifts off into a peaceful sleep, a small smile on his lips as well.

**Author's Note:**

> A very big thank you to the mod as well for dealing with my extensions! You deserve the stars.
> 
> Title from Ben Rector's [Love Like This](https://open.spotify.com/track/06JmNnH3iXKENNRKifqu0v?si=_zyonK9kRbmmgxPKJkecwA), which I _think_ is a pretty apt song for what I'm trying to go for here.  
>   
> Lastly, I have no idea if this formatted right, I hate having to check my html code so much. Very sorry about that.


End file.
